Dreams Deferred 2: Recurring Nightmares
by FutureGohan
Summary: The sequel to the story "Dreams Deferred" that people on FF.net decided not to read. This is the story of how love saved the world. Rated R for violence and sexuality.
1. Recap

Dreams Deferred 2: Recurring Nightmares  
  
Recap  
  
I previously wrote the story Dreams Deferred as a birthday gift to a girl I love very much. The brief story of 12 chapters went un-read on , and due to popular demand (and hoping that lightning will strike twice) I decided to write a sequel. For all those too lazy to read the prequel, here's an overview of the romance of two ordinary humans in the DBZ Universe.   
  
SPOILERS!  
  
Thorn was a young teen, dark-skinned with scarlet eyes and curly brown hair, thin and lean. He found himself in a world totally ignorant to his existence, and brooded heavily over the matter. The cynical young man found himself alone, and not just emotionally, when his class at Orange Star High School took the day off to go to the World Martial Arts Tournament. Of course, he wasn't invited, for reasons beyond his comprehension.  
  
Among the class was a popular young girl named Becky. Becky was a gorgeous blonde of 17, and madly in love with a young man named Bill. But her adoration wasn't returned by the lustful young man, as she learned in Satan City Stadium, overhearing his conversation about dumping the younger girl after he got what he wanted out of her. Bearing a newly broken heart, overcome by emotion, Becky raced to the bathroom to ease her pain, possibly permanently.  
  
By now, Thorn had made his way to the Stadium, and Bill attributed Becky's depature with the boy, and started some trouble with him. Thorn won the resulting fight, but Bill's friends ganged up on the boy and dragged him to an alley to beat him senseless. After some pummeling, Thorn escaped to the bathroom, where he and Becky met, Becky having cut herself with a razor. The two talked for a while, much to Thorn's suprise. They had more in common then they ever imagined, ignoring their popularity difference. Their lips drew closer...but would never meet.   
  
An explosion interrupted their moment, as Vegeta, possessed by Babidi, blew up a significant part of the Stadium. Thorn scouted the area and told Becky to go home, horrified by the death and destruction. With a sigh, he pulled Bill from the rubble.   
  
The next day, Thorn and Becky met once more on a hill overlooking the memorial ceremony for everyone who had died at the Stadium at Vegeta's hands. Thorn walked Becky home, and marvelled at the new feelings in his heart, that maybe the world was better than he thought.  
  
He was wrong. Majin Buu had surfaced, and began liberating millions of people of their lives. Becky herself was nearly turned into chocolate when she refused to kiss the pink abomination, but, fortunately for her, Thorn pounced on Buu at the last moment, and the beam harmlessly turned a rock into chocolate. Becky was buried in rubble. Majin Buu let Thorn live, thinking the boy was hugging the fat monster, laughing and flying away. Thorn, not being able to see Becky, thought he was too late and she was dead and did not return to his orphanage that night, his reason to live gone.   
  
Days later, Becky had paid a visit to Thorn's orphanage to visit the boy. His room was coincidentally a bomb shelter, and when she left, nearly every human had been killed by Majin Buu's human genocide attack. She left the city, believing Thorn was dead.   
  
The two met up once more in the middle of the vast wilderness, beaten and broken and illuminated by a giant sphere of energy in the sky upheld by the childish new form of Majin Buu. They exhanged their feelings and one final kiss before dying with the Earth in each other's arms.  
  
Like all humans, Thorn and Becky had been resurrected by the Dragon Balls. However, also like the rest of their species, they had no memories of the events surrounding Majin Buu, and thus, Thorn and Becky did not know eachother anymore. The story ended with the two meeting in the bathroom at Satan Stadium again and exchanging familiar dialogue. But this time, they wouldn't be interrupted by Vegeta.. 


	2. Useless Goals

Dreams Deferred 2: Recurring Nightmares  
  
Chapter 1   
  
"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! WEST CITY UNIVERSITY WINS!!! WCU WINS!!!" A familiar blonde announcer with sunglasses yelled into his microphone, against the raging cheers of thousands of fans that thoroughly clouded the air and every ear within a few miles.   
  
On the field, a young man with scarlet eyes was lifted up by two similarly-clad teammates in orange soccer uniforms. His dark, curly hair draped down over his forehead and tangles of it crossed his vision, his heavily tanned face glistening with sweat and a bit of blood from a gash on his forehead. There was an open wound on his left arm in the shape on an "X", sure to become a permanent scar. But despite his fatigue and injuries, a weary smile crossed Thorn's lips as his teammates dragged him to the medical ward.   
  
His final moments on the field replayed in his mind once more with every heavy beat of his heart. They had been down by 6 points, and the aggravated coach, pissed at both his team's lack of effort and Thorn's cynical comments about not being put in the game, put the dark-skinned boy onto centerfield. Thorn put his heart and soul into the game, and before long his angry, fearless rushes into the opponent's offensive line landed the team the 6 points, tying the game. With overtime ticking away, Thorn found himself nearly collapsing with fatigue. But as an opposing wing player sped his way, confident in Thorn's inability to stop him, a vision played before Thorn's eyes, a dream he had experienced many times before.  
  
The dream was always exactly the same. A parched, battered wasteland sprawled in all directions, but mere feet from him was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, illuminated by an unnatural light. The two embraced, and spoke a few words that never were clear to him. What was apparent however, was a sense of urgency as they looked to what seemed to be the full moon in the sky, as if the world was to end...and they locked lips as everything was destroyed...  
  
"NO!" Thorn yelled, startling the opponent with the ball as all his emotions inside him exploded and poured through him like the sweat that stung his eyes like a cruel gadfly. Not a moment had passed before Thorn had taken the ball and was moving with unholy speed toward the goal...and slammed the ball at the keeper.  
  
But to the dismay of all of West City, the goalkeeper had leapt to his left and just barely caught the ball, an arrogant smirk of triumph on his face as he prepared to punt the ball and Thorn's teammates retreated to defensive positions, mere seconds left in the game.  
  
They had all neglected to notice that Thorn had not stopped running, a light of angst and dire defiance reflecting in his cold red eyes. He leapt directly for the ball, foot outstretched. The keeper moved to defend it...  
  
Thus Thorn not only won the college soccer title, but the 22 year old obtained a scar on his arm that'd last a lifetime. Interviews were made, hugs were exchanged, and for a moment he felt as if he belonged.  
  
But that moment was quick to die. Thorn found himself in the usual bar, drinking away the pain of loneliness that had pervaded his soul every day since he had begun high school. Despite his celebrity status, his teammates and city's gratitude, (beer was on the house that night) he had not one friend to speak of. Thorn grimaced and closed his eyes, the band-aid on his head heavy, which he proceeded to rip off, the cut beneath bleeding anew. He considering taking his own life...but why, he asked himself, the image of the girl from his dreams was burned on his mind's eye every time he wanted to was beyond his comprehension. Thus he remained, without rhyme or reason to live other than the hope that his job as optometrist would fall through.  
  
On the outskirts of town, something more furious than the emotions within Thorn stirred, it's cold pink eyes surveying the landscape with utter loathing. One day it would all succumb to his control. For it had the blood of the perfect warrior. 


	3. Reunion

Chapter 2

"Class, what's a word that describes a person, place, or thing?"

"A penis!" Several children burst out into giggles. One girl scratched her chin in wonder. The teacher just sweat-dropped and looked down in embarassed anger as a vein surfaced on her forehead.

She was beautiful, far more beautiful than she was willing to admit. Golden hair that seemed to capture all the radiance of the sun and more cascaded down to her shoulders. The english teacher's slim figure and deep, crystal eyes were only accented by the school-teacher's uniform she was clad in. She sighed. This was not West Elementary as she remembered it. Her silence was broken by the young girl raising her hand and asking sweetly.

"Miss Becky?" The innocent voice addressed. "What's a penis?"

Even the boy who had first mentioned the word was puzzled. Becky slapped her head and looked down. A second passed before a shrill ring caused her to jerk her head up, saved by the bell again. She stood facing an entirely empty classroom, and blinked in confusion at how fast children dissappeared at the end of the day. A smile crossed her ruby lips as the fatigued schoolteacher sat behind her desk, and rolled up her sleeve. Several scars and cuts ran deep in her wrist. She eyed them with delight, and reached in her pocket for her pencil sharpening razor -

- then dropped it to the ground, startled, as a man opened the door and stepped in. He had shaggy, curly brown hair that drooped down and taunted the wind to be blown into his eyes. His clothes, though formal, seemed very hastily thrown together, and it appeared he hardly knew how to put on a tie, which hung sloppily down the white shirt that clung to his chest beneath the beige suit-vest he wore. A nametag on his right breast revealed his identity. "Thorn." It read, rather plainly. Becky swooped down, nearly diving on the razor which she hid behind her back. Thorn walked to the center of the room and sat on a desk, sunlight streaming from the windows and reflecting off his darkly tanned skin. He shook his head knowingly and then looked to her, smirking a bit, not even bothering to fake a real smile.

"Hello, miss." He said, bowing his head, "I'm the optometrist who checked your kids eyes today." His voice was silky and kind.

"Oh yeah, thanks a lot!" Becky stammered, fumbling the razor some more, sweating profusely. "Is there umm...anything you need?" She said drastically, annoyed by his intrustion. To her shock, he walked right up to her and reached behind her back, prying the razor away easily. He flicked it in the air and caught it.

"Still up to no good, huh?" Smirking devilishly as he continued to flick the blade and catch it, his reflection caught on it's shiny surface each time. Becky just stood with a mixed look of anger and confusion.

"Didn't think you'd remember me, Becky. But you definitely...left a mark-" His eyes meandered to the scars on her wrists. "-on me that day in the bathroom. At the World Martial Arts Tournament?" He shook his head. That day was the first and last day they had spoken. He doubted she cared or remembered.

"THORN!" Before he could think or even see her move for that matter, her arms were flung around him in an extremely tight hug. He patted her on the back and smiled, for the first time in ages. He took her wrist in his hand and stroked the scar with his fingertips. She blushed and looked down, and he smiled, touching her chin to lift her eyes to his.

"No matter how you hurt yourself, your beauty can never be lost, don't worry." She giggled and they parted, as she sat on the desk.

"We really need to catch up." Becky smiled, crossing her legs. Thorn took a step back, reeling with shock that she'd actually want to.

"You would? Would you like to uhh..." Noticing he was lost for words, Becky chimed in.

"Go out to eat sometime?" Thorn nodded, and regained his composure.

"Tonight at 8 then?" Becky nodded, and the two shared a smile before he went out the door again, rather red in the face.

Several crows fluttered off of the school building, alarmed by something above. A silhouette slipped down against the crimson sun that had already begun to dip it's head below the horizon. It landed silently, and it's winged shadow cut ominously into the sunset.

It was a hunter, but tonight, it's prey was not just a hapless creature to consume. It had come to the school for a reason. It seemed to pause, sniffing the air, casting it's disturbing red eyes about the area. No, what it had come to claim it's own was nowhere to be found, at least for now. So it would lie in wait, for the moment to strike.


End file.
